The 2026 Financial Wellbeing Report
Most of your people aren't lying awake over their pension.They're lying awake over this month.
This is the 2026 picture of financial wellbeing at work in the UK. It's also the gap most employers don't know they have.
Section 1 - The state of play
Everyone's investing in wellbeing. Almost no one's finishing the job.
Mental and physical health have earned their place on the boardroom agenda. Financial wellbeing is the pillar that keeps getting skipped. In the CIPD's 2026 reward survey, only 15% of UK organisations had a formal financial wellbeing policy in place. More than one in five had no objectives behind their benefits at all, and just 31% could link those benefits to performance.
So most teams are spending real money on benefits they can't measure, and the financial piece is the thinnest part of the package.
had a formal financial wellbeing policy
had no objectives behind their benefits at all
could link benefits to performance
Section 2 - The hidden cost
Money worries don't stay at home. They clock in.
Worry costs sleep. Lost sleep costs focus. And it shows up at work whether or not anyone talks about it. Deloitte puts the cost of poor mental health to UK employers at around £51bn a year, with presenteeism - people at their desks but not really there - the single biggest part. On the money side specifically, separate UK research estimates financial-worry presenteeism alone at £6.6bn a year, with another £3.7bn in absence.
And this isn't only a lower-pay problem. The CIPD's Good Work Index found 31% of staff said money worries had hurt their performance, rising to 37% for those earning under £40,000, and still 22% among people earning £60,000 and over.
Financial-worry presenteeism, UK
a year, with another £3.7bn in absence.
Money worries hurting performance
Section 3 - The perception gap
You probably know your numbers. You might not know your people.
Here's the uncomfortable part. Aviva found 73% of employees more anxious about money because of rising costs, but only 56% of employers thought their people were worried. Half of employees had never raised it with their employer or manager at all.
The gap isn't because nothing's wrong. It's because no one's talking. Which means a lot of People teams are making decisions about their workforce based on a picture that's quietly out of date.
of employees anxious about money
of employers thought their people were worried
The gap
Section 4 - A different life, a different need
A 24-year-old and a 54-year-old need completely different help. Most packages pretend they're the same.
Financial wellbeing isn't one thing. It's a different thing at every stage of a working life. Drag through a career below and watch what actually keeps people up at night.
Building
Thirties to mid-fortiesA first home and the deposit that never quite arrives. Children, and the question most parents never get round to answering: who would raise them if I were gone. Most UK parents have not named a guardian or made any provision for their children if the worst happened. This is where everyday life and the harder stuff meet for the first time, and where an unmarried partner can be left with no protection at all, because the rules don't bend for modern families.
One thread runs through all of it. Take crypto: a young person's asset that quietly becomes an estate problem, lost forever when no one left the keys. Every stage has an everyday layer and a protection layer. Almost no employer covers the whole arc.
Section 5 - The invisible layer
And there's one layer no one's covering at all.
For all the focus on wellbeing, there's a part of financial life that almost no benefits package touches: wills, power of attorney, and the practical admin that lands on a family when someone dies.
It's not rare. Around 7.9 million people in work - nearly a quarter of the workforce - are bereaved in any given year, at an estimated £23bn cost to the economy. Yet only 21% of employees believe their employer would offer practical help, like guidance through probate, if it happened to their family. Most adults aren't prepared either: depending on the study, between half and two-thirds of UK adults have no will, or one that's out of date.
This is also the corner of the picture where the rules are about to change. A new day-one right to bereavement leave is on its way, and from April 2027 the inheritance tax treatment of pensions shifts, turning what was a private matter into something employers will need to help their people understand.
Section 6 - What good looks like
What the employers getting this right do differently.
The organisations pulling ahead aren't necessarily spending more. They're joining things up. Instead of a shelf of point solutions, they offer support that fits where someone actually is in life. They talk about money openly, so people use what's there. And they measure whether any of it works, rather than hoping.
Put simply: less scattered, more personal, and honest about results. That's the direction of travel in 2026.
Joined up.
Less a shelf of point solutions, more one coherent picture that someone can actually use.
Personal by life stage.
Support that fits where someone is in life, not a one-size package aimed at the average.
Measured.
Tied to objectives and reviewed, so you know whether any of it is helping.
Where does your organisation stand?
We turned the 2026 picture into a two-minute benchmark. Answer ten questions about your own organisation and see where your support is strong, where the gaps are, and how the employers getting it right compare.